NCAA Champs Kentucky Were the Best of Both Worlds

The bad guys won it all. Last night, John Calipari, the NCAA's resident arch-fiend, did what he failed to do with John Wall and DeMarcus Cousins, or at Memphis with Tyreke Evans or Derrick Rose. By getting his Shining Moment, Coach Cal's NBA finishing school proved, definitively, that basketball is basketball; three, maybe four, future lottery picks should be able to take out anyone else's blue-chip recruits. Let's not pretend for an instant that a program like Kansas is in the same category as a mid-major. Bill Self wants the best players he can get; Calipari just get better ones, albeit with a very different sales pitch. He promises them an NBA future; Self, who can't count on reloading every year, is stuck with old hens who need to be taught the noble precepts of college basketball.

As we've been reminded throughout the tournament, though, this Kentucky team doesn't play like a bunch of careerists. Regardless of how Calipari lured them in, Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Terrence Jones, Marquis Teague, and the rest did a remarkable job of not just overwhelming other teams, but outplaying them. They were artful, excited, inventive, smart, unselfish, and most importantly, a cohesive unit, not an aggressive system with a fresh crop of recruits plugged in (Jones, a sophomore, could have entered the draft last spring.) All the values that college ball supposedly holds dear, they exemplified, while flashing the kind of talent one would expect from the likes of Davis and MKG.

People like myself, who abhor both moralistic college ball purists obsessed with mediocrity and the age limit that allows Coach Cal to exist in the first place, shouldn't feel vindicated by this championship. College ball has something to teach us about teamwork, trust, and vulnerability. At the same time, supreme athletes are the only ones who can make these things matter for shit.

Nothing can redeem Calipari. At best, he's a symbol of a broken system, one that the NCAA and the NBA have conspired to rig for anyone with the character, or lack thereof, necessary to run his kind of program. But this year's Kentucky team repaired the gulf between the college and the pro game, however temporarily. They will have their NCAA experience and move on, and in their wake, leave memories that, for once, don't have to make us cringe. For either what they did to others, or what was done to them. Anyone who hates this team probably hates basketball (with many college fans, is a distinct possibility). It's hard to have a feel-good juggernaut, or have this kind of monster squad come across as modest. In the end, though, that's what we have: a team of kids with one foot out the door who nevertheless seem to genuinely enjoy, and make the most of, the time they have.